DEVELOPMENT OF IRISH POETRY
Some of the very earliest Irish poems--of which we have specimens in
the verses attributed to Amergin, son of Milesius, and in the first
satire ever uttered in Ireland, and in many more pieces of a like
character[1]--appear to have been unrhymed, and to have depended for
their effect partly upon rapidity of utterance, partly on a tendency
towards alliteration, and in some cases on a strongly-marked leaning
towards dissyllabic words.
Soon after the time of St. Patrick and the first Christian
missionaries, the Irish are found for certain using rhyme--how far
they had evolved it before the coming of the Latin missionaries is a
moot question. The Book of Hymns has preserved genuine specimens of
the Latin verses of Columcille and other early saints, which either
rhyme, or have a strong _tendency_ towards rhyme, though few of these
early verses are found wholly chiming on the accented syllables.[2]
It is a tremendous claim to make for the Celt that he taught Europe
to rhyme; it is a claim in comparison with which, if it could be
substantiated, everything else that he has done in literature pales
into insignificance. Yet it has been made for him by some of the
foremost European scholars. The great Zeuss himself is emphatic on
the point; "the form of Celtic poetry,"[3] he writes, "to judge both
from the older and the more recent examples adduced, appears to be
more ornate than the poetic form of any other nation, and even more
ornate in the older poems than in the modern ones; from the fact of
which greater ornateness it undoubtedly came to pass that at the very
time the Roman Empire was hastening to its ruin, the Celtic poems--at
first entire, afterwards in part--passed over not only into the song
of the Latins, but also into those of other nations and remained in
them." In another place he remarks the advance towards rhyme made in
the _Latin_ poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, and unhesitatingly ascribes
it to Irish influence. "We must believe," he writes, "that this form
was introduced among them by the Irish, as were the arts of writing
and of painting and of ornamenting manuscripts, since they themselves
in common with the other Germanic nations made use in their poetry of
nothing but alliteration."[4] Constantine Nigra expresses himself even
more strongly in his edition of the glosses in the Codex Taurinensis.
He says--
"The idea that rhyme originated amongst the Arabs must be absolutely
rejected as fabulous.... Rhyme, too, could not in any possible way
have evolved itself from the natural progress of the Latin language.
Amongst the Latins neither the thing nor the name existed. We first
meet with final assonance or rhyme at the close of the fourth or
beginning of the fifth century in the Latin hymns of the Milanese
Church, which are attributed to St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. The
first certain examples of rhyme, then, are found on Celtic soil and
amongst Celtic nations, in songs made by poets who are either of
Celtic origin themselves or had long resided amongst Celtic races.
It is most probable that these hymns of Middle Latin were composed
according to the form of Celtic poetry which was then flourishing,
and which exhibits final assonance in all the ancient remains of
it hitherto discovered. It is true that the more ancient Irish and
British poems which have come down to us do not appear to be of older
date than the seventh or eighth century [Nigra means, in their present
form], but it must not be rashly inferred that the Celtic races, who
were always tenacious of the manners and customs of their ancestors,
had not employed the same poetic forms already, long before, say in
the earliest centuries of our era."[5]
After arguing that the Irish rule of "Slender-with-Slender and
Broad-with-Broad," a rule which was peculiar to the Celts alone of
all the Aryan races, contained in itself the germ of rhyme, he sums
up his argument thus positively: "We must conclude, then, that this
late Latin [Romanic] verse, made up of accent, and of an equal number
of syllables, may have arisen in a twofold way, first by the natural
evolution of the Latin language itself; or secondly, by the equally
efficacious example of neighbouring Celtic peoples, but we conclude
that _final assonance, or rhyme, can have been derived only from the
laws of Celtic phonology_."[6]
Thurneysen, on the other hand, who has done such good service for
the study of Irish metric by his publication of the text of the
fragmentary Irish poets' books,[7] is of opinion that the Irish derived
their regular metres with a given number of syllables in each line,
from the Latins;[8] and Windisch agrees with him in saying that the
Irish verse-forms were influenced by Latin,[9] though he thinks that
Thurneysen presses his theory too far. The latter, in opposition to
Zimmer,[10] will not for instance allow the genuineness of St. Fiacc's
metrical life of St. Patrick because it is in a rhymed and fairly
regular metre, a thing which, according to him, the Irish had not
developed at that early period. It seems necessary to me, however, to
take into account the peculiar prosody of the Irish, especially the
_tour de force_ called _áird-rinn_ used in _Deibhidh_ [d'yevvee] metre,
which we find firmly established in their oldest poems,[11] and which
makes the rhyming word ending the second line contain a syllable more
than the rhyming word which ends the first, while if the accent fall in
the first line on the ultimate syllable it mostly falls in the second
line on the penultimate, if it falls on the penultimate in the first
line it generally falls on the antepenultimate in the second, as--
"Though men owe respect to t=hem=,
Presage of woe--a =poe=m.
The slender free palms of =her=
Than gull on sea are =whi=ter.
A far greater than ány
Man has killed my Cómpany."[12]
This peculiarly Irish feature was not borrowed from the Latins, but is
purely indigenous. The oldest books of glosses on the Continent contain
verses formed on this model.[13] According to Thurneysen's theory the
Irish learned how to write rhymed verse with lines of equal syllables
sometime between, say, the year 500 and 700, but the _Deibhidh_ metre
with _áird-rinn_ is found in their oldest verses, bound up with rhyme
in their accurate seven-syllable lines. Why should two of these
ingredients, the rhyme and the stated number of verses have come from
the Romans when the _Deibhidh áird-rinn_ (which apparently implies
rhyme) did not? Besides is it credible, on the supposition that the
pre-Christian Irish neither counted their syllables nor rhymed, that
within less than a couple of hundred years after coming in contact
with the rude Latin verse of Augustin and Ambrose, they had brought
rhyming verses to such a pitch of perfection as we see, in, say, the
"Voyage of Bran," which according to both Kuno Meyer and Professor
Zimmer, was written in the seventh century, the very first verse of
which runs--
"Cróib dind _abaill_ a h-Emain
Dofed _samaill_ do _gnáthaib_
Gésci findarggait _fora_
Abrait _glano_ co _m-bláthaib_"?
The whole of this poem, too, is shot through with verses of _Deibhidh_,
and the rhymes are extraordinarily perfect.[14] This at least is
clear, that already in the seventh century the Irish not only rhymed
but made intricate _Deibhidh_ and other rhyming metres,[15] when for
many centuries after this period the Germanic nations could only
alliterate--a thing which though sometimes used in Irish verse is in
no way fundamental to it. In England so late as the beginning of the
fifteenth century, the virile author of the book of Piers Ploughman
used alliteration in preference to rhyme, and, indeed, down to the
first half of the sixteenth century English poets, for the most part,
exhibit a disregard for fineness of execution and technique of which
not the meanest Irish bard attached to the pettiest chief could have
been guilty. After the seventh century the Irish brought their rhyming
system to a pitch of perfection undreamt of, even at this day, by
other nations. Perhaps by no people in the globe, at any period of
the world's history, was poetry so cultivated and, better still, so
remunerated, as in Ireland. The elaborateness of the system they
evolved, the prodigious complexity of the rules, the subtlety and
intricacy of their poetical code are astounding.
The real poet of the early Gaels was the _filé_ [fillă]. The bard
was nothing thought of in comparison with him, and the legal price
of his poems was quite small compared with the remuneration of the
_filé_. It was the bard who seems to have been most affected by Latin
influence, and the metres which he used seem to have been of relatively
new importation. Where the _filé_ received his three milch cows for a
poem the bard only bore away a calf. The bards were divided into two
classes, the Saor and Daor bards, or the patrician and plebeian.[16]
There were eight grades in each class, one of the many examples of the
love of the Irish for minute classification, a quality with which they
are not usually credited, at least, not in modern times. Each of these
sixteen classes of bard has his own peculiar metre or framework for his
verses, and the lower bard was not allowed to encroach on the metres
sacred to the bard next in rank.[17]
The fĭlés [fillăs] were, as we have said, the highest class of poets.
There were seven grades of Filé,[18] the most exalted being called
an ollamh [ollav], a name that has frequently occurred throughout
this book. They were so highly esteemed that the annalists give the
obituaries of the head-ollamhs as if they were so many princes. The
course of study was originally perhaps one of seven years. Afterwards
it lasted for twelve years or more.[19] When a poet had worked his way
up after at least twelve but perhaps sometimes twenty years of study,
through all the lower degrees, and had at last attained the rank of
ollamh, he knew, in addition to all his other knowledge, over three
hundred and fifty different kinds of versification, and was able to
recite two hundred and fifty prime stories and one hundred secondary
ones. The ancient and fragmentary manuscripts from which these details
are taken, not only give the names of the metres but have actually
preserved examples of between two and three hundred of them taken
from different ancient poems, almost all of which have perished to a
line, but they give a hint of what once existed. Nearly all the text
books used in the career of the poet during his twelve years' course
are lost, and with them have gone the particulars of a civilisation
probably the most unique and interesting in Europe.
The bardic schools were at no time an unmixed blessing to Ireland.
They were non-productive in an economic sense, and as early as the
seventh century the working classes felt that these idle multitudes
constituted an intolerable drain upon the nation's resources. Keating
in his history says that at this time the bardic order contained a
third of the men of Ireland, by which he means a third of the free
clans or patricians. These quartered themselves from November to May
upon the chiefs and farmers. They had also reached an intolerable
pitch of insolence. According to the account in the Leabhar Breac
they went about the country in bands carrying with them a silver pot,
which the populace named the "pot of avarice," which was attached by
nine chains of bronze hung on golden hooks, and which was suspended on
the spears of nine poets, thrust through the links at the end of the
chains. They then selected some unfortunate victim, and approached in
state his homestead, having carefully composed a poem in his laudation.
The head poet entering chanted the first verse, and the last poet took
it up, until each of the nine had recited his part, whilst all the
time the nine best musicians played their sweetest music in unison
with the verses, round the pot, into which the unfortunate listener
was obliged to throw an ample guerdon of gold and silver. Woe to him
indeed, if he refused; a scathing satire would be the result, and
sooner than endure the disgrace of this, every one parted to them with
a share of his wealth. Aedh mac Ainmirech, the High-king of Ireland,
who reigned at the end of the seventh century--the same who afterwards
lost his life in the battle of Bolgdún in raising the thrice cursed
Boru tribute--"considering them," as Keating puts it, "to be too heavy
a burden upon the land of Ireland," determined to banish the whole
profession. This was the third attempt to put down the poets, who had
always before found a refuge in the northern province when expelled
from the others. But now King Aedh [Ae] summoned a great convention of
all Ireland at Drum Ceat [Cat] near Limavaddy in the north of Ireland,
to deliberate upon several matters of national interest, of which the
expulsion of the bards was not the least important. The fate of the
Bardic Institution was trembling in the balance, when Columcille, an
accomplished bard himself as we have seen, crossed over from Iona with
a retinue of 140 clerics, and by his eloquence and great influence
succeeded in checking the fury of the exasperated chieftains: the
issue of the great convention which lasted for a year and one month,
was--so far as the bards were concerned--that their numbers were indeed
reduced, but it was agreed that the High-king should retain in his
service one chief ollamh, and that the kings of the five provinces, the
chiefs of each territory, and the lords of each sub-district should all
retain an ollamh of their own. No other poets except those especially
sanctioned were to pursue the poetic calling.
If the bards lost severely in numbers and prestige on this occasion
they were in the long run amply compensated for it by their acquiring
a new and recognised status in the state. Their unchartered freedom
and licentious wanderings were indeed checked, but, on the other hand,
they became for the first time the possessors of fixed property and of
local stability. Distinct public estates in land were set apart for
their maintenance,[20] and they were obliged in return to give public
instruction to all comers in the learning of the day, after the manner
of university professors. Rathkenry in Meath, and Masree in Cavan are
particularly mentioned as bardic colleges then founded, where any of
the youth of Ireland could acquire a knowledge of history and of the
sciences.[21] The High-king, the provincial kings, and the sub-kings
were all obliged by law to set apart a certain portion of land for
the poet of the territory, to be held by him and his successors free
of rent, and a law was passed making the persons and the property of
poets sacred, and giving them right of sanctuary in their own land from
all the men of Ireland. At the same time the amount of reward which
they were allowed to receive for their poems was legally settled. From
this time forward for nearly a thousand years the bardic colleges, as
distinct from the ecclesiastical ones, taught poetry, law, and history,
and it was they who educated the lawyers, judges, and poets of Ireland.
As far as we can judge the bards continued to flourish in equal power
and position with the dignitaries of the Church, and their colleges
must have been nearly as important institutions as the foundations
of the religious orders, until the onslaught of the Northmen reduced
the country to such a state that "neither bard, nor philosopher,
nor musician," as Keating says, "pursued their wonted profession in
the land." It was probably at this time that the carefully observed
distinction between the bard and the _filé_ broke down, for in later
times the words seem to have been regarded as synonymous.
For some time after the Norman conquest the bardic colleges seem to
have again suffered eclipse; and, as we have seen, the century that
succeeded that invasion appears to have produced fewer poets than any
other. But the great Anglo-Norman houses soon became Irishised and
adopted Irish bards of their own. There are many incidents recorded in
the Irish annals and many stories gathered from other sources which go
to show that the importance of the bards as individuals could not have
been much diminished during the Anglo-Norman régime. One of them is
worth recording. In the beginning of the thirteenth century the steward
of the O'Donnell went to Lisadill,[22] near Sligo, to collect rents,
and some words passed between him and the great poet Murrough O'Daly,
who, unaccustomed to be thwarted in anything, clove the head of the
steward with an axe. Then, fearing O'Donnell's vengeance, he fled to
Clanrickard and the Norman De Bourgos, and at once addressed a poem to
Richard De Burgo, son of William Fitzadelm, in which he states that he,
the bard, was used to visit the courts of the English, and to drink
wine at the hands of kings and knights, and bishops and abbots. He
tells De Bourgo that he has now a chance of making himself illustrious
by protecting him, O'Daly of Meath, who now throws himself on his
generosity and whose poems demand attention. As for O'Donnell, he had
given him small offence.
"Trifling our quarrel with the man,
A clown to be abusing me,
Me to kill the churl,
Dear God! Is this a cause for enmity?"
De Bourgo accordingly received and protected him, until O'Donnell,
coming in furious pursuit, laid waste his country with fire and
sword. Fitzadelm submitted, but passed on the poet to the O'Briens
of North Munster. But O'Donnell again pursuing with fury, these also
submitted, and secretly dispatched the poet to the people of Limerick
who received him. O'Donnell hurried on and laid siege to the city,
and its inhabitants in terror expelled the poet once more, who was
passed on from hand to hand until he came to Dublin. But the people of
Dublin, terrified at O'Donnell's threats, sent him away; and he crossed
over into Scotland where his fame rose higher than before, and where
his poems remained so popular that when the Dean of Lismore in Argyle
jotted down nearly four hundred years ago in phonetic spelling a number
of poems just as he heard them, they included a disproportionately
large number of this O'Daly's,[23] who was afterward known as Murrough
the Scotchman. At last in return for some fine laudatory verses upon
O'Donnell he was graciously pardoned by that chieftain and returned to
his native country.
The Anglo-Normans not only kept bards of their own, but some of
themselves also became poets. The story of Silken Thomas and his bard
whose verses urged him on to rebellion, is well known. It is curious,
too, to find one of the Norman Nugents of Delvin in the sixteenth
century making the most perfect classical Irish verses, lamenting his
exile from Ireland, the home of _his_ ancestors, the Land of Fintan,
the old Plain of Ir, the country of Inisfail.
"Loth to Leave, my _fain_ eyes swim,
I Part in P_ain_ from Erinn.
Land of the L_oud_ sea-rollers,
PRide of PR_oud_ steed-controllers."[24]
After a few generations the Anglo-Normans had completely forgotten
Norman-French, and as they never, with few exceptions, learned English,
they identified themselves completely with the Irish past, so that
amongst the Irish poets we find numbers of Nugents, Englishes, Condons,
Cusacks, Keatings, Comyns, and other foreign names.
It was only after the Anglo-Norman government had developed into an
English one that the bards began to feel its weight. The slaying of
the Welsh bards by Edward is now generally regarded as a political
fiction. There is no fiction, however, about the treatment meted out
to the Irish ones. The severest acts were passed against them over and
over again. The nobles were forbidden to entertain them, in the hope
that they might die out or starve, and the Act of Elizabeth alleges one
of the usual lying excuses of the Elizabethan period: "Item," it says,
"for that those rhymours by their ditties and rhymes made to divers
lords and gentlemen in Ireland to the commendation and high praise of
extortion, rebellion, rape, ravin, and other injustice, encourage those
lords and gentlemen rather to follow those vices than to leave them,
and for making of the said rhymes rewards are given by the said lords
and gentlemen, (let) for abolishing of so heinous an abuse, orders be
taken." Orders were taken, and taken so thoroughly that O'Brien, Earl
of Thomond, obliged to enforce them against the bards, hanged three
distinguished poets, "for which abominable, treacherous act," say
the "Four Masters," "the earl was satirised and denounced." I find a
northern bard about this time, the close of the sixteenth century,
thus lamenting the absence of his patron, Aedh [Ae] Mac Aonghasa:--
"If a S_age_ of Song should be
In the _wage_ of C_ourt_ or King.
HA! the Gallows Guards the WAY.
AH! since AE from _port_ took wing."[25]
Spenser the poet was not slow in finding out what a power his Irish
rivals were in the land, and he at once set himself to malign and
blacken them. "There are," he writes, "amongst the Irish a certain
kind of people called bards, which are to them instead of poets,"--the
insinuation is that the bards are not real poets!--"the which are had
in so high regard and estimation among them, that none dare displease
them for fear to run into reproach through their offence, and to be
made infamous in the mouths of all men." On which, Eudoxus, his friend,
is made to remark innocently that he had always thought that poets were
to be rather encouraged than put down. "Yes," answers Spenser, "they
should be encouraged when they desire honour and virtue, but," he goes
on, "these Irish bards are for the most part of another mind, and so
far from instructing young men in moral discipline, that whomsoever
they find to be most licentious of life, most bold and lawlesse in his
doings, most dangerous and desperate in all parts of disobedience and
rebellious disposition, him they set up and glorify in their rhythmes,
him they praise to the people and to young men make an example to
follow."
The allegation that the bards praised what was licentious is an untruth
on the part of the great poet. Few English Elizabethans, once they
passed over into Ireland, seem to have been able to either keep faith
or tell truth; there was never such a thoroughly dishonourable race,
or one so utterly devoid of all moral sense, as the Irish "statesmen"
of that period. The real reason why Spenser, as an undertaker, blackens
the character of the Irish poets is not because their poems were
licentious--which they were not--but because, as he confesses later on,
they are "tending for the most part to the hurt of the English or [the]
maintenance of their owne lewde libertie, they being most desirous
thereof."
Spenser's ignorant and self-contradictory criticism on the merits of
the Irish bards has often been quoted as if it constituted a kind of
hall-mark for them! "Tell me, I pray you," said his friend, "have
they any art in their compositions, or be they anything wittie or
wellmannered as poems should be?"
"Yea, truly," says Spenser, "I have caused divers of them to be
translated unto me, that I might understand them, and surely they
savoured of sweet art and good invention, but skilled not in the goodly
ornaments of poesie, yet were they sprinkled with some pretty flowers
of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto
them; the which it is a great pity to see abused to the gracing of
wickedness and vice, which with good usage would serve to adorn and
beautify virtue."
The gentle poet is here almost copying the words of the Act, which
perhaps he himself helped to inspire, according to which the bardic
poems are in praise of "extortion, rebellion, rape, ravin, and other
injustice." I have, however, read hundreds of the poems of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but have never come across a
single syllable in laudation of either "extortion, rape, ravin, or
other injustice," but numerous poems inciting to what the Act calls
"rebellion," and what Spenser terms "the hurt of the English and the
maintenance of their owne lewde libertie."
* * * * *
It would be difficult to overrate the importance of the colleges of
the hereditary bards and the influence they exercised in the life of
the sixteenth century. They fairly reflected public opinion, and they
also helped to make it what it was. There is a great difference between
their poems and the _memoria technicha_ verses of the ancient ollamhs,
whose historical and genealogical poems, which they composed in their
official capacity, are crowded with inorganic phrases and "chevilles"
of all kinds. The sixteenth-century poet was a man of wit and learning,
and frequently a better and more clear-seeing statesman than his
chief, who was in matters of policy frequently directed by his bard's
advice. They certainly had more national feeling than any other class
in Ireland, and were less the slaves of circumstances or of mere local
accidents, for they traversed the island from end to end, were equally
welcome north, south, east, and west, and had unrivalled opportunities
for becoming acquainted with the trend of public affairs, and with
political movements.
Most people, owing to their comparative neglect of Irish history, seem
to be of opinion that the bards were harpers, or at least musicians of
some sort. But they were nothing of the kind. The popular conception
of the bard with the long white beard and the big harp is grotesquely
wrong. The bards were verse-makers, pure and simple, and they were no
more musicians than the poet laureate of England. Their business was
to construct their poems after the wonderful and complex models of the
schools, and when--as only sometimes happened--they wrote a eulogy or
panegyric on a patron, and brought it to him, they introduced along
with themselves a harper and possibly a singer to whom they had taught
their poem, and in the presence of their patron to the sound of the
harp, the only instrument allowed to be touched on such occasions, the
poem was solemnly recited or sung. The real name of the musician was
not _bard_--the bard was a verse-maker--but _oirfideadh_ [errh-fid-yă],
and the musicians, though a numerous and honourable class, were
absolutely distinct from the bards and _filés_. It was only after the
complete break-up of the Gaelic polity, after the wars of Cromwell
and of William, that the verse-maker merges in the musician, and the
harper and the bard become fused in one, as was the case with Carolan,
commonly called the last of the bards, but whom his patron, O'Conor
of Belanagare, calls in his obituary of him, not a _bard_, but an
_oirfideadh_.
Down to the close of the sixteenth century and during the greater part
of the seventeenth, verse, with few exceptions, continued to be made
in the classical metres of Ireland, by specially trained poets, who
did not go outside these metres. In the ensuing century the classical
metres began to be discarded and a wonderful and far-reaching change
took place, which shall be made the subject of a future chapter.
We must now proceed to examine a species of popular poetry which
flourished during all this period side by side with the bardic schools,
although no trace remains to-day of its origin or its authors. This is
the so-called Ossianic poetry.
[1] This is a kind of rhetoric; some of these unrhymed outbursts
were called _rosg_ by the Irish. Irish literature is full of such
pieces. Some of the Brehon Law though printed in prose seems to have
been composed in it. Other examples are the cry of the Mór-rígan, or
war-goddess, in the end of the Battle of Moytura.
"Peace to heav'n "Sith go neim
Heav'n to earth Neamh go domhan,
Earth neath heav'n Domhan fá neim
Strength in each," etc. Neart i gcách," etc.
or the description of the Dun Bull of Cuailgne in the Táin Bo, or part
of the first poem attributed to Finn mac Cool, or trie well-known
eulogy on Goll the Fenian, or Mac Mhurighs incitement at the battle of
Harlaw, or some of the verses in the preface to the Amra. About the
last specimen of unrhymed poetry, in a species of Droighneach metre,
I find in the Annals of Loch Cé on the death of Mac Dermot as late as
1568.
"Gég iothmar fhineamhna na n-éigeas ocus na n-ollaman,
Craobh cumra cnuais na gcliar ocus na gcerbach,
Dóss díona na ndámh ocus na ndeóraidh
Bile buadha buan fhoscaidh na mbrughaidh ocus na mbiattach."
[2] Thus the nearest approach that Columcille makes to Latin rhyme is
in the final unaccented syllable. See his "Altus" beginning
"Altus prosator vetustus Sed et erit in sæcula
Dierum et ingenitus Sæculorum infinita
Erat absque origine Cui est unigenitus
Primordii et crepidine. Christus et sanctus spiritus," etc.
[3] "Formam poesis celticæ, exemplis allatis, tarn vetustioribus quam
recentioribus vel hodiernis, magis ornatum esse apparet quam ullius
gentis formam poeticam, ac magis ornatam in vetustioribus carminibus
ipsis, quam in recentioribus. Quo majore ornatu, haud dubie effectum
est, ut jam inde ab illis temporibus quibus ad interitum ruebat Romanum
imperium, celtica forma, primum integra, deinde ex parte, non solum in
latina sed etiam (aliarum) linguarum carmina transferretur atque in iis
permanserit" ("Grammatica Celtica," Ebel's edition, p. 977).
[4] "Magis progressa consonantia, cum frequentiore allitteratione,
amplior finalis sæpius trissyllaba invenitur in Anglo-Saxorum
carminibus latinis; ad quos, cum ipsi principio cum ceteris Germanis
non usi sint nizi allitteratione, ab Hibernis hanc formam esse
transgressam putandum est, ut transiit scriptura atque ars pingendi
codices et ornandi" (Ibid., p. 946).
In another passage he expresses himself even more strongly; for of
rhyme he says: "Hanc formam orationis poeticæ quis credat esse ortam
primum apud poetas Christianos finientis imperii Romani et transisse ad
bardos Cambrorum et in carmina gentilia Scandinavorum" (Editio Ebel, p.
948).
[5] "Origo enim rîmæ arabica inter fabulas omnino rejicienda est....
Porro rîma ex solo naturali processu latinæ linguæ explicari nullo
modo potest. Apud Latinos nec res extitit nec nomen.... Assonantia
finalis vel rîma, sæculo quarto abeunte et quinto incipiente vulgaris
ævi, primus occurrit in hymnis latinis ecclesiæ mediolanensis qui
sancto Ambrosio et Sancto Augustino tribuuntur. Prima itaque rîmæ
certa exempla inveniuntur in solo celtico, apud celticas gentes, in
carminibus conditis a poetis, qui vel celticæ originis sunt, vel
apud celticas gentes diu commoraverunt. Verosimile ut hosce hymnos
mediæ latinitatis constructos esse juxta formam celticæ poesis quæ
tune vigebat, et quæ jam assonantiam finalem præbet in antiquis ejus
reliquiis huc-usque detectis. Profecto carmina hibernica et brittanica
vetustiora quæ ad nos pervenerunt sæculum octavum vel septimum superare
non videntur. Sed temere non est affirmare celticas gentes quæ moris
consuetudinisque majorum tertaces semper fuerunt, jam multo antea,
primis nempe vulgaris ævi sæculis, eamdem poeticam formam adhibuisse"
("Glossæ Hibernicæ Veteres Codicis Taurinensis." Lutetiæ. 1869. p.
xxxi.).
[6] "Concludendum est igitur versum romanicum, accentu legatum et pari
syllabarum numero, oriri potuisse ex duplicis causæ concursu, nempe à
naturali explicatione latinæ linguæ, et ab exemplo pariter efficaci
affinium celticorum populorum; sed rîmam seu assonantiam finalem, a
solis celticæ phonologiæ legibus derivatam esse" (Ibid., p. xxxii.).
[7] "Mittelirische Verslehren," "Irische Texte," iii. p. 1.
[8] _See_ his article in "Revue Celtique," vi., p. 336.
[9] "Dass die irische Versform von der lateinischen Versform
beeinflusst worden ist, scheint mir zweifellos zu sein. Es fragt sich
nur was die irischen Barden schon hatten als dieser Einfluss begann.
Das was Thurneysen ihnen zugestehen will ist mir etwas zu wenig"
("Irische Texte," iii. 2, p. 448).
[10] "Wir haben," says Zimmer, of this hymn, "ein altes einfaches und
ehrwürdiges Monument vor uns, an das eine jüngere Zeit mit verändertem
Geschmack, passend und unpassend, an--und eingebaut hat."
[11] _Deibhidh_, in Old Irish _Debide_, a neuter word, which Thurneysen
translates "cut in two," is not really a rhyme but a generic name for
a metre, containing twenty-four species. The essence of the principal
_Deibhidh_, however, is the peculiar manner of rhyming with words of
a different length, so that this system has sometimes been loosely
called _Deibhidh_ rhyme. In the oldest poetry a trisyllable instead of
a dissyllable rhyme could be used as the end word, of the second line
when the first line ended with a monosyllable, but in the strictness of
later times this was disallowed.
[12]
"Tús onóra cidh dual =di=,
Tuar anshógha an =eig=si.
Glac bárr-lag mar chúbhair =ton=n
Do sháraigh dath na bh=faoi=lionn.
Gníomh follus fáth na h-=each=tra
Fá'r ciorrbadh mo =chuid=eachta."
These specimens are taken from unedited manuscripts in my own
possession, copied by O'Curry from I know not what originals.
[13] Thus in the Codex St. Pauli we find these verses:--
"Messe ocus Pangur =ban=
Cechtar náthar fria =sain=dán
Bith a menma-sunn fri =seil=gg
Mu menma céin im =sain=-ceirdd.
Caraim-se fos ferr gach =clu=
Oc mo lebran leir =ing=nu
Ni foirmtech frimm Pangur =ban=
Caraid sesin a =macc=-dán."
[14] The end rhyming words in verses 6-10 for example are as
follows--fóe nóe, _bátha_ hil_blátha_, bláthaib thráthaib, gnáth tráth,
_datho_ moith_gretho, chéul_ Arggut_néul, mrath_ etar_gnath_, cruais
clúais, _bás_ ind_gás_, n-_Emne_ com_amre._
[15] Compare, too, the verses that the monk wrote in the margin of the
St. Gall MS. which he was copying, on hearing the blackbird sing--
"Dom farcai fidbaidae _fál_
Fomchain lóid lain luad nad cél
Huas mo lebrán ind_linech_
Fomchain _trírech_ inna nén;"
the language of which is so ancient as to be nearly unintelligible to
a modern, though the metre is common from that day to this. "A thicket
of bushes surrounds me, a lively blackbird sings to me his lay, I shall
not conceal it, above my many-lined book he sings to me the trill of
the birds," etc. Commenting on these verses Nigra says feelingly,
"Mentre traduco questi versi amo figurarmi il povero monaco che, or
fá più di mille anni, stava copiando il manoscritto, e distratto un
istante dal canto dei merli contemplava dalla finestra della sua
cella la verde corona di boscaglie che circondava il suo monastero
nell Ulster o nel Connaught, e dopo avere ascoltato l'agile trillo
degli uccelli, recitava questi strofe, e rapigliava poi più allegro
l'interrotto lavoro."
It has often been alleged that the word rhyme is derived from the Irish
_rím_, "number," _rímaire_, "a reckoner," and _rimim_, "I count;"
but in Anglo-Saxon _rím_ has the same meaning, so that unless the
Anglo-Saxons borrowed the word, as they certainly did the thing, from
the Irish, this is inconclusive.
In fol. 8a of the "Liber Hymnorum" we read in the preface to the very
ancient hymn "In Trinitate spes mea," the following note: "Incertum
est hautem in quo tempore factus est, Trerithim dana doronadh ocus xi.
caiptell déac ann, ocus dalíni in cech caiptiull, ocus se sillaba déc
cechai. Is foi is rithim doreir in ómine dobit ann.," _i.e._, "in rhyme
it was made and eleven chapters thereon and two lines in every chapter,
and sixteen syllables in each. It is on _i_ the _rhyme_ is because of
the 'omine' that is in it." In the preface to the hymn, "Christus in
nostra insula," the scholiast writes, "Trerithim dana dorigned," which
Whitley Stokes translates by "in _rhythm_ moreover it was made," but
_rithim_ evidently means the same in both passages, namely, _rhyme_
not rhythm, at least if the first passage is rightly translated by
Dr. Stokes himself. I doubt, however, if _rím_ or _rithim_ ever meant
"rhyme" in Irish.
[16] The various Saor bards were called the _Anshruth-bairdne_ (great
stream of poetry?), the _Sruth di aill_ (stream down two cliffs?), the
_Tighearn-bhard_ (lord bard), the _Adhmhall_, the _Tuath-bhard_ (lay
bard), the _bo-bhard_ (cow-bard) and the _Bard áine_. The highest of
the Daor bards was called the _cúl-bhard_ (back bard), and after him
came the _Sruth-bhard_ (stream-bard), the _Drisiuc_, the _cromluatha_,
the _Sirti-uí_, the _Rindhaidh_, the _Long-bhard_, and the _bard
Loirrge_.
[17] Thus the head of the patrician bards was entitled to make use of
the metres called _nath_, metres in which the end of each line makes
a vowel rhyme or an alliteration with the beginning of the next,
the number of syllables in the line and of lines in the verse being
irregular. There were six kinds of _náth_ metres, called _Deachna_.
All these the first bard practised with two honourable metres besides,
called the great and little _Séadna._ The ANSHRUTH used the two kinds
of metres called _Ottbhairdne_, the SRUTH DI AILL used _Casbhairdne_,
the TIGHEARN-BHARD used _Duanbhairdne_, a generic metre of which there
were six species called _Duan faidesin, duan cenátach, fordhuan,
taebh-chasadh, tul-chasadh,_ and _sreth-bhairdne_. All the metres which
these five employed were honourable ones, and went under the generic
name of _príomhfódhta._ Then came the ADHMHALL with seven measures
for himself, _bairdne faidessin, btogh-bhairdne, brac-bhairdne,
snedh-bhairdne, sem-bhairdne, imard-bhairdne,_ and _rathnuatt._ The
TUATH-BHARD had all the _Rannaigheacht_ metres and the BO-BARD all
the _Deibhidh_ metres, and these two, Rannaigheacht and Deibhidh,
though thus lowly thought of in early--probably pre-Danish--days, were
destined in later times, like the cuckoo birds, to oust their fellows
and reign in the forefront for many hundred years. The Tuath-bhard had
also two other metres _Seaghdha_ and _Treochair_, and the Bo-bhard in
addition to Deibhidh had long and short _deachubhaidh._
The classification of the Daor bards and their metres is just as minute.
[18] The lowest grade of _filé_ was called the _fuctuc_ (word
maker?). In his first year he had to learn fifty ogams and straight
ogams amongst them. He had to learn the grammar called _Uraicept na
ti-éigsine_, and the preface to it, and that part of the book called
_réimeanna_, or courses, with twenty _dréachts_ (stories?), six
metres and other things. The six metres were the six _dians_ called
_air-sheang, midh-sheang, iar-sheang, air-throm, midh-throm_, and
_iar-throm._
[19] Each of the twelve years had its own course of the same nature as
the above.
[20] I have seen it stated, but I do not know on what authority, that
their income derived from land, in what is the present county of
Donegal, was equal to £2,000 a year.
[21] _See_ Keating's "Forus Feasa" under the reign of Aedh mac
Ainmireach.
[22] Lios-an-doill _i.e._, the "blind man's fort." _See_ the preface to
O'Donovan's "Satires of Angus," for this story.
[23] He preserved eight pieces of O'Daly, who is called Muireach
Albanach, and in one place Muireach Lessin Dall (_i.e._, Lios-an-Doill)
O'Daly.
[24]
"Diombuaidh _Triall_ o Thulchaibh Fáil
Diombuaidh _Iath_ Éireann d'fhágbháil,
Iath mhilis na _Mbeann_ Mbeachach,
Inis na _N-Eang_ N-Óig-eachach."
Deibhidh metre. _See_ Hardiman, vol. ii. p. 226.
[25]
"Dá _ndimghiodh duine_ re dán
Fá _chiniodh_ don _chuire_ ríogh
Do bhiadh _croch roimhe_ ar gach _raon_
_Och!_ gan _Aodh Doire_ dar ndíon."
Rannaigheacht Mór metre. From a MS. poem.